


where sleeping beasts lie

by blueparacosm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dark!Murphy, M/M, Possession, Post-Season/Series 06, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23440123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm
Summary: Something's not right about Murphy.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, Clarke Griffin/John Murphy, Emori/John Murphy (The 100), John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 15
Kudos: 90





	where sleeping beasts lie

**Author's Note:**

> i don't want to say much in the notes, but i will tell you right now that this is not a happy story, and i hope you'll enjoy it anyway. it's like, it's sexy, but sad. i'm sure many of you can relate
> 
> obviously this is MURPHAMY. but everyone gets a little crumb and it's not all romance so i think if you like murphy and you want to be sad this is a good fic for you
> 
> made a playlist, have it nicely organized to listen while reading if you enjoy that: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01NjUTQJwvB829V7umotqh?si=ZfxAOkqvRluMDJsMtDXadg
> 
> ... good luck

Maybe it could have been avoided if they’d taken Murphy seriously. But no one ever did. How could they? It was _Murphy._

They never had before and certainly weren’t then, when everything in the world was still a little more weird, a little more wrong than Murphy blurting out, “We shouldn’t have killed the Primes.”

Some who stood around the great dining table glanced up at him in disbelief, brows cocked. Bellamy turned a tired eye on Emori, still resplendent in cobalt and silver if not smudged beneath the eyes, evidence of hours spent scrambling to plaster a bandage over the weeping wound that was Sanctum. She looked not concerned, but frustrated. Like this wasn’t the first time Murphy had brought it up.

Bellamy hadn’t been around to know. He’d spent the last few days in the woods of the Alpha moon on the outskirts of the mysterious anomaly, starbursts of green swirling behind his eyes whenever he took a moment to blink, waiting for her.

He’d get her back. The best minds among them were on the case, Raven and Gabriel working with Hope Diyoza and all her eccentricities to find a way for them to safely enter the anomaly and return at will, Octavia in tow. Hope promised that the anomaly would heal her, that it would protect her as she fought to free Charmaine Diyoza.

So they were working on it, and Bellamy would be on that jump team and going into the storm any day now.

Any day.

“Let’s stay focused,” Clarke said, side-eyeing Murphy as his hands clenched tightly around the edge of the gilded table and he glared at the tablet placed before him, presenting Sanctum’s manifesto of laws to an unseeing eye. Bellamy raised a brow at the sight.

Everyone always brushed Murphy off. It wasn’t that Bellamy necessarily approved, but it was unlike Murphy to be so upset by it. He was used to it, right?

But everything in the world was wrong, and Bellamy didn’t have time to wonder what was eating at John Murphy of all people.

“These citizens know how their own society runs, brainwashed or not. We just need them to trust in a new leader,” Clarke decided, tapping her fingers on the edge of her tablet as she held it to her chest. “A just and fair leader, but someone they’ll follow without a fuss. Just until we can come up with a contingency plan for when we tell them the truth and they freak out again.”

“The people always loved the Lees,” Gabriel said, his smile gentle but tinged with mischief as he glanced at a wide-eyed Emori. “Especially Kaylee.”

“No, nope,” she protested, averting her gaze to the table and shaking her head so that the fine chains in her hair trembled. “No way.”

“Just for a little while longer,” Clarke insisted, an apologetic tilt to her mouth. “You won’t have to do anything, just act as a figurehead.”

Emori just carried on shaking her head, looking as if she had already given in but was incredibly unhappy about it, when everyone turned to Murphy. The new Daniel Lee.

“Murphy, what say you?”

The false prime straightened up, smoothed down the lapel of his suit jacket, and flicked an invisible mote of dust from his shoulder. When he lifted his head, there was an obnoxious smirk on his lips that seemed to run deep. “I think we’ll manage,” he said, looking at them all from beneath dark lashes and pocketing his hands, too cool for it all.

Bellamy rolled his eyes at his display of familiar arrogance, but found himself glancing over at the long, pleased line of Murphy for the rest of the meeting, as he leaned on a hip against the table, arms crossed. He was ignoring the manifesto, forgoing the papers and scrolls passed his way, and looking far off in his imagination.

Bellamy frowned as they adjourned the meeting and Murphy sauntered away, deeper into the palace. Clarke seemed thoroughly amused as Bellamy joined her, trudging toward the massive doors that would take them to their _real_ work, as Murphy scampered off to go and play king of the castle.

“Everything’s a game to him,” Bellamy grumbled, heavy with the weight of a broken world, a missing sister, and countless corpses, walking alongside a woman who had just nearly lost her life, her daughter, and whose mother had slipped through her fingers. How was Murphy always so unfazed at the end of it all?

“I almost envy that about him,” Clarke admitted. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” said Bellamy, remembering the one time he’d seen the unflappable Murphy break. “I’m afraid of what’ll happen if he loses.”

Clarke huffed a laugh as they stepped out onto the sunlit staircase overlooking the city, warmth and light hitting them both like a smack in the face after all the darkness they’d swallowed. He only felt lower for it. “That’s a tantrum I’d give anything to watch.”

Bellamy tried to smile, and found that he couldn’t.

∞

“Why don’t you just kill me?” Russell moaned, voice thick with grief and rough as gravel, and rolled his head against the stone wall of his cell. Bellamy eyed the untouched tray of food and the bucket of water still lapping at its own edges, full to the brim. “You’ve killed my wife, my daughter,” he snarled. “You’ve killed everyone. Why not me?”

“Loathe as I am to admit it, we need you.”

Russell barked out a raspy, humorless laugh, and Bellamy sighed, kneeling to exchange the day-old tray of food with another.

“Because you’re a bunch of kids who made a mess you don’t know how to clean up.”

Bellamy sneered, kicking the tray across the cell so it clattered against the sole of Russell’s polished shoe, food tumbling over the sides of the plate. “Keep your strength up. You won’t be getting a new host, and I’ve heard being on ice isn’t very much fun.”

Russell’s jaw shifted, but he made no move to comply, staring desolate at the wall across from him. As Bellamy locked his cell and turned to leave the prison beneath the castle, he heard the scrape of Russell drawing the tray closer over the stone floor.

He wished he could kill the man. Not out of revenge, not out of hate, but mercy.

He couldn’t imagine living without hope the way Russell Lightbourne did. Without anything but fury and misery and regret in his heart, the way Russell Lightbourne did.

“This is far from over, son,” the prime swore. “You all would have done well to let sleeping beasts lie.”

“I’m sure,” answered Bellamy, and slammed the prison door shut behind him.

∞

The people were discontent, but settling back into a routine. Life had to go on. They were a little nation in mourning, averting their eyes as Clarke, Gaia, and Madi scraped the ashes from the blackened pyre and took the sticks down.

The Earthlings had discovered corruption in their government, the “Lees” had said. The Earthlings were trying to _help_ the people of Sanctum in the great battle, to warn them that the other Prime families had abandoned them to flee to planet Beta when the Children of Gabriel attacked.

For this reason alone, Bellamy and Echo were, if not welcomed, left be as they walked through the unhappy town. They wove carefully between workers hurrying to catch up on their chores, farmers bustling from the fields to the cookhouse with baskets of berries in arm, artists and traders crisscrossing from shops to homes, teachers herding children about in duckling rows.

The machine shop came into sight around the corner of another unsettlingly cheerful-looking cottage, bikes and toolboxes piled up outside to make room for Gabriel’s insanity. There was a twitch in the tense line of Echo’s lips even as she marched steadily forward, and Bellamy recognized it as apprehension.

“I’m sorry about what happened with Ryker,” he said, reaching for her hand. She closed her fist as his fingers brushed her skin.

“I’m alive and he’s dead, right? That’s all that matters now,” she replied, staring resolutely ahead. “I just wish we could find his mind drive so I could destroy it myself.”

“Maybe sometime we can search for it. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. We’ll look near where Priya fell, since she had it last.”

Echo gave him a tentative, sideways smile. Bellamy tried again to smile back. They always had the weirdest dates.

In the machine shop, Gabriel had his maps and journal pages spread out over the floor, taped down and connected by pen lines and strings in a way that must have made sense to him but looked like the work of a madman. Even the walls were covered in notes, drawings, graphs, and symbols, and a radio on a workbench was blasting out repeating, staticky fragments of transmissions collected in what Gabriel called the Verge, the translator of the anomaly’s absorbed and spat out transmissions. 

Bellamy had a headache already.

“We come bearing gifts,” greeted Echo, dropping three sack lunches on the workbench. Raven darted out from behind a computer across the room and dug greedily into one of the bags, shoving a vegetable dumpling in her mouth like an animal starved.

“By that she means ‘thank you,’” said Gabriel from where he sat on the floor, hunched over and highlighting symbols on a drawing of the Anomaly Stone.

Raven scoffed, taking another massive bite before she’d swallowed the first. “How are you not starving?” she asked, her words muffled by food. “We’ve been working all night and all morning.”

“Just got used to having less, I suppose.”

“I ate rationed algae for six years. No way you’re calling me a pig,” bickered Raven, returning to her workstation with her lunch cradled against her chest like something precious.

“You’re not a pig, Raven,” Gabriel sighed with a smile. He then gave a grateful nod as he accepted his food from Echo, as she leaned precariously over his massive thought map. “You’re very smart and we appreciate your help.”

“That’s more like it,” Raven agreed, looking pleased as she got back to tapping out sequences that would probably make no sense at all to Bellamy should he have bothered to investigate.

“Any good news?” he dared to ask, ignoring Echo’s concerned glance at his voice coming out gruff and stilted. He cleared his throat, and breathed in deeply as Gabriel avoided his eyes and Raven looked up at him with apology written all over her face.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy. We’re trying. I’ll be honest, this alien rock time travel stuff really isn’t my forte.”

Gabriel scoffed. “I’ve been studying the anomaly for over a century and I don’t know how to tether someone to reality for controlled interdimensional travel either, so don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“So you don’t— you don’t have anything?”

Gabriel clenched his jaw. Raven looked away.

“What about Hope?” he asked, feeling increasingly desperate. “Where is she?”

“She’s keeping an eye on the anomaly, I think she mentioned trying to communicate with Octavia using the stone?” Gabriel shook his head, staring thoughtfully at his sketches of the artifact. "She knows something, but I think she’s more concerned with saving her mother than she is with helping us pull Octavia out.”

Bellamy understood. Of course he understood. The fury bubbled up in him all the same. “She’s supposed to be helping us. It’s _her_ fault that my sister’s in there in the first place.”

The others blinked at him, looking vaguely sympathetic but without words to placate him; without answers. He was so sick of begging for answers.

“Does she even care that Octavia could die in there? That she could be trapped?” he snarled, pacing. “Does _anyone_ care?!” With a sudden, wild rush of anger, he slammed his heel against a crate of tools that tipped over and clattered across the shop’s cement floor. Echo, Raven, and Gabriel cringed at the noise, watching him like he was a ticking time bomb as he clenched his fists and kept the rest of it inside.

“We all care, Bellamy,” Echo promised. “Everyone’s trying their best, okay? We’ll get her back.” Bellamy shook his head, shrugging her comforting hand off of his arm. He was sick of placating lies, too.

“Why don’t you do something to take your mind off of it, yeah?” offered Raven. “The _Lees_ are hosting a memorial ball tonight. Apparently Sanctum likes to follow up their funerals with parties. Could be fun.” Raven wiggled her eyebrows.

Bellamy almost physically recoiled at the idea. “Not interested, thanks.”

“Doesn’t really matter whether you’re interested,” Gabriel interjected. “Your group needs to look like friends to Sanctum if you want the people to trust you. Ignoring an invitation to celebrate the lives of the citizens who died in the attack would be an incredible insult.”

Great.

Beyond irritated with everything in the world and then some, Bellamy smiled tightly. “Then I guess we better get ready to party.”

“Be sure to pregame,” Raven advised him, eyes glowing with the reflection of phosphors, twinkling with sugarplum dreams of Bellamy’s suffering. “You’re gonna need it.”

∞

The memorial ball was an atrocious thing, really.

Bellamy watched nearly-nude people writhe and sway under beams of violet and blue, skin shimmering with glitter and sweat. He felt the bass of the energetic music pounding up through the floor and deep in his chest, his teeth shivering along thrumming jaws. He smelled heaps of rich, luxurious foods spread out along the walls and scattered amongst the tables off of the dance floor.

So, overall a pretty mournful affair.

Echo had joined a table with Emori and Raven, their grins lit up by the glowing fishbowl in the table’s center, shouting their conversation into each other’s ears over the music. Echo was picking at a plate of chicken which Raven periodically reached over to steal from despite the buffet tables, while Emori was up out of her seat every few minutes to exchange a stiff hug with some emotional subject in need of her godly attention.

Bellamy wasn’t much in the mood for conversation, and stood leaning against a pillar, squinting as pink lasers and stars swung past his eyes from the projectors scattered around the ballroom ceiling.

Another glance across the dance floor revealed Clarke, pretty and appropriately scary in a silver, sequined dress and a cropped leather jacket, leaning in to gossip with Murphy, two sets of devious blue eyes trained on Bellamy.

Murphy was wearing something new; another dark tuxedo shimmering faintly with emerald, a satin, plum cape pooling at his heels. His eyes were still dark, and little black olive branches were painted on either of his cheekbones like a laurel of peace cradling his head. It was purposeful. Propaganda, even.

Bellamy scoffed. He was really going all in on this Prime act. Enjoying it, probably, being treated like royalty. Bellamy wanted to be annoyed, but found that he really didn’t mind so much. Despite everything Murphy had done, Bellamy was just glad that someone was having fun. That they were both still alive. That was all that mattered now, right?

He stiffened as Clarke elbowed Murphy playfully and then shrugged at Bellamy, hands splayed in a worrying ‘I tried,’ gesture as Murphy began stalking toward him. Bellamy shook his head in protest as Murphy’s long strides got longer and his sly smile got wider, as he streaked across the dance floor like a strange comet, glimmering, dark-ringed eyes blazing with mischief.

“What do you want?” Bellamy mouthed as he came in close, brows quirked and lips carefully drawn in a frown that he hoped would put Murphy off. To no avail, of course.

Without a word, Murphy reached up and yanked Bellamy’s coat off of his shoulders, flinging it to the floor. Then he grabbed Bellamy by the front of his shirt, curling the ‘V’ of buttons and frayed strings in his fist, and walked backwards, pulling.

“No,” Bellamy whined, allowing himself to be pulled.

“Yes,” said Murphy, tugging them deeper into the throng, keeping Bellamy’s eyes to himself as they were jostled by the crowd, walking until they were swallowed up whole.

“No one can see you,” Murphy said at last, leaning in to shout it into Bellamy’s ear. “Dance with me!”

Bellamy just shook his head again, eyes darting side to side as the crowd seemed to close in, as the music put a heartbeat into his throat, into his fingers and his toes. He didn’t dance. He was supposed to be mad at Murphy, at least a little, and he _didn’t_ dance.

Watching him closely through eyes still glinting with mirth, Murphy stuck his arms out at his sides and wiggled them, the wave traveling left to right and then right to left in a silly demonstration of ‘dancing’ that made Bellamy, against all odds, crack a smile.

Encouraged, Murphy inclined his head at Bellamy, insisting. Bellamy rolled his eyes but relented, God knows why, and lifted his arms into a ’T’ to give a halfhearted wave across them, mimicking Murphy. Murphy, who was grinning like a maniac.

He did a couple more awful maneuvers that Bellamy begrudgingly copied, and within a few minutes Bellamy found he was swaying on his own, letting the music push him side to side, to Murphy’s great delight.

“He _can_ dance!” Murphy shouted over the booming music, grinning massively. “I’ll alert the scientific community!”

Bellamy rolled his eyes again, like he was so wont to do around Murphy, but found he couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m drunk!”

“No, you’re not!” Murphy yelled, smacking the back of his hand against Bellamy’s chest. “You’re having fun! Admit it!”

He didn’t answer, and when Murphy reached out to smack him again, Bellamy caught his wrist and yanked Murphy closer. “I’m _drunk!”_ he insisted, knowing damn well that he wasn’t. Murphy cranked his head slightly, quirking an eyebrow.

“In that case, so am I!” he decided, and turned his back to Bellamy so that they were pressed flush together, Murphy’s head tilted back against Bellamy’s shoulder. Bellamy swallowed as he looked down to meet Murphy’s eyes, dark, intense, and closer than they had ever been, and let a hand creep over his hip, around Murphy’s waist. Murphy’s grin was killer.

It could have been the colored lights passing over Murphy’s skin, making his features look surreal; supernatural. It could have been the music, filling Bellamy up and shaking him to his core. It could have been the people, dancing, grinding, touching all around them. It could have been the little booze he’d had, it could’ve been the grief and the sickness and the suffering, it could’ve been that Bellamy just wanted to feel good for once. 

It could’ve been anything, and so Bellamy didn’t try to explain it away, what he felt as Murphy moved against him, at the sight of sweat beading in his perfectly-tamed hair and his eyeliner smudging; the way his heart slammed against his chest as he gripped Murphy’s hips harder and the man’s lips peeled into another obnoxious, arrogant smirk.

“Having fun yet?” Murphy called, leaning up toward Bellamy’s ear and baring his throat. Bellamy stared at his skin, at the faint scars there, and had visions of lips, tongues, teeth.

He opened his mouth to reply when there was a sudden emptiness, the friction and warmth of Murphy’s body gone in a flash as he twisted away and slammed another partygoer to the floor. 

"Murphy!" Bellamy shouted, and made to yank Murphy away from his victim, who he held to the ground by their neck even as other attendees nearly trampled them both. Though his back was turned, Murphy’s hand shot up to beat Bellamy’s outstretching arm away. Then he extended a leg from his crouch, pressing his shiny shoe down on the person’s wrist until their fingers uncurled against the pressure, and Murphy wrestled something from their hand.

A knife. Not just any knife, but the adjustment blade, the Sanctum emblem glinting on its handle in a swinging beam of light.

Someone screamed at the sight of it and the music cut off suddenly, overhead lights brightening as the crowd stumbled back and fanned out, forming a circle around Bellamy, Murphy, and the Prime priest. Daniel Lee’s lover.

Bellamy looked up and found Clarke, Raven, Emori, and Echo staring at him with calculating eyes, standing around their table with their hands poised at their hips, ready to draw weapons.

Yanking the priest to his knees, Murphy let the knife dangle by his side instead of wielding it. Bellamy was taken aback as Murphy bent over to search the eyes of the assassin, dangerously close. “You meant to kill me.”

“Like you killed my husband,” the priest spat, teary-eyed and venomous. “You are a _fraud.”_

“Enough,” Murphy snapped, and then sunk to a knee before him, searching the priest’s eyes. “I told you, Zev. Something went wrong with the resurrection and my memory is shot. But it’s coming back. _I’m_ coming back. You understand?”

The priest, Zev, shook his head fiercely, flinging tears down his cheeks. “You and the rest of the Earth people. Imposters and liars and frauds, each of you. _Murderers._ You would use the Primes’ names to make these people bow to you.”

Murphy clicked his tongue, reaching out to lay a gentle hand upon Zev’s cheek. The priest flinched away ever so slightly, squeezing his eyes shut as if horrified by Murphy. “You’re not well, my heart. I’d have you return to my rooms and rest, but first I must know if you intend to try and hurt me again.”

Zev’s mouth hung open, his red-rimmed eyes flicking miserably between Murphy’s. Then, like a curtain coming down, the priest’s heartbroken expression vanished, leaving nothing but black, slithering hate. “I won’t rest until you’re dead.”

Jaw pulsing, Murphy stretched to his full height again, looming over the kneeling widow. “Then you leave me no choice.” He snapped his fingers, and two palace guards were on the man, wrestling him to his feet. “Take him to the cells.”

As the guards dragged the priest away, as he kicked and screamed about frauds and filthy, murdering liars, Bellamy searched Murphy’s expression for grief or sorrow or sympathy. He found none of that, only a calm look of determination that was wholly unprecedented on Murphy’s face.

“Citizens of Sanctum!” he called, looking out over the anxious, surrounding crowd with his chin held high. Bellamy furrowed his brows, looking toward his friends. They didn’t see him, staring on in disbelief as Murphy made his way to the stage and accepted a microphone from the man who had been controlling the music.  “Citizens of Sanctum,” he repeated, booming, stepping to the edge of the stage into a circle of violet light so the people could see him in all his glittering glory. “The attack on our community at the hands of the demon Gabriel and his _cult_ has taken a toll on us all. It is not only for the dead that we mourn, but for our way of life, our sense of security.”

Murphy paced the stage once, twice, looking convincingly pensive before leveling his audience with a grim expression. “The Lightbournes, the Masons, the Desais, all but the Lees… your Primes _abandoned_ you. How can you trust again?” He paused, taking the microphone in both hands, facing the crowd head-on as they shook their heads, grief-stricken. 

“It will take time to heal from this great tragedy. And during these times, we must take care of each other. We must protect our neighbor, we must trust them and turn to them when we are in need. But I promise you this: we will heal. We _will_ know peace again. Together we shall rise from these ashes, and restore Sanctum to its former glory.”

Murphy’s words fell over the silent, awe-stricken crowd and settled slowly, silt across water, before the ballroom exploded with thunderous applause. _“For the glory and grace of the Primes!”_ they chanted, _“For the glory and grace of the Primes!”_

The false Daniel Lee smiled as if shy, ducking his head humbly as they cheered for him, and Bellamy was struck at once by the incredible strangeness of it all. Murphy had never spoken with such passion, such eloquence. Murphy didn’t say words like ‘tragedy’ or ‘heal,’ ‘peace’ or ‘trust.’ Murphy wasn’t shy; wasn’t humble; did not duck his head and smile. It was all so… manufactured. Manipulative.

He sent a bewildered expression toward his friends in the back of the ballroom, meeting Clarke’s impressed if not somewhat disturbed look as Echo clapped and Raven and Emori whistled, cheering and whooping at Murphy in astonishment.

When Bellamy turned back to Murphy he was surrounded on all sides by adoring citizens, so many of them hanging off of him by his suit lapel and chattering at him at once. But he wasn’t looking at any of them.

He was staring straight at Bellamy, and seemed in that moment like someone else altogether, his gaze focused and intense. Deep. Dark.

Bellamy raised his drink slowly to Murphy in recognition of the performance of the century, and Murphy suddenly looked more like himself again, grinning slyly at a job well done.

∞

Balancing two trays in hand on the journey down the spiral staircase to the prisonwas a more difficult feat than balancing the one, and Bellamy hoped the great _Daniel Lee_ wouldn’t be making anymore enemies. He’d hate to have to make a second trip.

He nudged the door open with his foot, revealing Russell still sitting on the floor where he’d been since they’d locked him away, staring blankly, and the priest curled up on his cot and facing the wall, his smock bundled up beneath his head.

Bellamy left the newest prisoner his tray before moving to replace Russell’s previous meal, noting that he had at least taken a few bites of everything.

“Fresh fruit today,” Bellamy mused, crouching over the tray and nudging it closer to the former god of Sanctum, sullen and sallow, oh-so-fallen from grace. “Seems the farmers are getting back into the swing of things.”

“Just get on with it,” Russell sighed, lolling his head toward Bellamy, looking him up and down with hateful eyes. “What do you want to know?”

Bellamy casted his gaze to the floor, nodding and recalibrating. No small talk. No goddamn fruit. Just business and politics, acid words and wasting away. Bellamy would have done the same.

“We want all you’ve got on the tunnel systems. Access codes, an estimation of the bunker’s inventory, anything about the air filters, the water situation, heat, electricity, whatever else we need to know,” Bellamy explained. “If there’s a map, tell us where it is. If not, I’d like you to draw one up.” He collected a scroll of blank paper and a pencil from his coat pocket, holding the supplies out so Russell could see them.

The Prime shook his head and donned a small, disbelieving smile, his gaze falling away in disinterest. “And why should I help _you?”_

“Because I think you still care about your people,” answered Bellamy, “and they’ll need competent leadership to survive.”

“Tough luck, then,” Russell muttered, uncharacteristically sarcastic since his imprisonment, but turned his glare onto Bellamy and held out a hand anyway. Bellamy tossed him the paper and pencil and locked his cell again, taking a seat on the bench by the prison’s door as Russell begrudgingly spread the scroll out on the floor and got to work.

Pulling his knee to his chest and hunkering down to fend off the slight chill in the prison, Bellamy glanced around the place, inspecting the elaborate engraving along the crown of the wall in the otherwise barren dungeon. _“Acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt,”_ it read, the English translation inscribed beneath: “Mortal actions never deceive the gods.” Bellamy grimaced at the threat implicit in the phrase. He thought Sanctum couldn’t get any creepier, yet it continued to surprise him.

He peeked at the priest in the third cell over, one empty set of bars left between the two prisoners in the small jail. Zev was still facing the wall, though his breathing had become shallow and unsteady.

Bellamy felt sorry for him, but knew his sympathy would be worth less than nothing and kept quiet, watching the man struggle to hold himself together in silence until Russell had finished his sketching.

He took the map, nodding in satisfaction at the crisp lines and clear labelling, notes about the bunker’s inventory and power functions written on the back of the paper in perfect, regal handwriting. “Thank you,” he mumbled, distracted by the quality of the information. Russell did not reply, and Bellamy made to leave. Just as he grabbed the prison door’s iron handle, still reading the curling map in his other hand, the priest finally spoke up.

“You’ll pay,” said the man, his voice soft and not at all suited for making threats. “One day, soon. The Primes will make you pay.”

Bellamy stared at him, still curled up on his smock with his eyes closed. There would be no changing this man’s mind, he realized at once. The Prime priest would have to be banished outside of the dome lest he kill Murphy. Lest he kill them all for breaking his heart.

“You know they weren’t really gods, don’t you?” Bellamy said, searching Zev’s form for signs of shock. The man lay still.

“Of course I knew.”

Bellamy shook his head, bewildered. “Then why would you allow it? Why would you play along?”

“People need something to believe in. It _worked_ for us. We had peace.”

“Your people were sacrificing themselves to dictators. That’s not peace, it’s exploitation,” Bellamy argued, releasing the door to face him properly.

“Tell me, what’s changed since the Earth people arrived?” asked the priest, propping himself up on an elbow to match Bellamy with a piercing gaze. “Was there an election? Do they know the truth about the Primes yet? Or did you kill their keepers and take the throne for yourselves, and call it liberation?”

Bellamy gripped the map tightly, felt the paper creasing in his fist. “The difference is they won’t have to die for us.”

Zev shook his head, lying back down and closing his eyes. “They already have.”

Bellamy stood there for a moment longer, staring, before he shook himself and made for the door. He didn’t have to listen to this. The priest was clearly brainwashed, unsettled and grieving.

“I _am_ sorry about your husband, just so you know.” Formerly deathless tyrant though he may have been. No one deserved to lose someone they loved.

“Why? He’s still alive, isn’t he?” Zev laughed, though it was more like a cough, breaking to pieces on the way out. “That’s what your man would have me believe. Murphy, you called him?”

Bellamy kept quiet, creaking the door open with his eyes cast away, recalling the way he’d shouted Murphy’s name at the ball and cursing his mistake. He prayed no one else had heard.

“I’d be a fool not to recognize when a stranger is wearing my husband’s clothes, but he plays the part well, I’ll give him that much.”

“How’s that?” Bellamy murmured, white-knuckling the door handle.

“‘My heart,’” whispered Zev, smiling, fondness suddenly etched in every line of his grief-drawn face. “I don’t know how he knew it… but Daniel always called me his heart.”

“Yeah, well,” said Bellamy, feeling a strange combination of pride and discomfort at his friend’s apparent intuition. That or dumb luck. “Murphy can be quite the trickster.”

“A murderer _and_ a liar,” Zev laughed, adjusting his smock beneath his head and curling up tighter. “Don’t let that one get away.”

“I could say the same to you,” Bellamy snapped, sympathy vanishing at the implication that John Murphy and Daniel Lee were anything alike.

Zev only hummed, ignoring Bellamy’s jab as he clutched at a gold pendant around his neck, mourning someone who had no business being mourned.

At least Bellamy could live with himself, loving Murphy.

∞

The servants of the castle, like all the rest, wanted to keep believing. They doted on their false Primes in the Lees and their unjust council of Earthlings, working overtime to keep food on the table and the guest rooms cleaned, Murphy and Emori done up in glitter and gold and always with a helping hand in spitting distance.

The servants kept things running smoother than smooth, which meant the new Lees were on the clock whether they liked it or not.

Bellamy crossed the throne room with his hands clasped behind his back, circlingthe long line of empty seats upon the dais with what he hoped was an air of importance. Emori was slumping in a lavish throne, haloed by the sapphires nestled in its ornate, golden frame. The three ruby-studded thrones of the Lightbournes’ were empty, as were the three royal seats of the Masons’, scattered with jade, the two Desai thrones speckled by amethysts. The other three Lee thrones were left wanting as well, even the one at Emori’s right, the rich blue cushion stained by a wine spill courtesy of Murphy which the servants had yet to notice.

Bellamy bent forward on his friend’s right, speaking to Emori politely out of the corner of his mouth like he’d seen the servants do. “Where’s _Daniel?”_

Emori shook her head, waving in another citizen who would inevitably be accompanied by another unsolvable complaint. The guards complied, uncrossing their staffs to allow a harried mother to rush to the foot of the dais and kneel, two grubby-handed children hanging onto her skirt.

“His bathroom breaks are getting longer and longer,” Emori murmured, rolling her eyes. 

Bellamy quirked a brow. “Bathroom breaks, huh?”

“Mhm,” Emori hummed, tilting up tired eyes to meet Bellamy’s skeptical look with one of her own. Then her expression softened, readjusted to appear elegant and kind again as she acknowledged the kneeling woman. “Hello,” she said. “What’s your name?”

The woman ducked her head respectfully, smoothing out her skirt with trembling hands. “Mavia, your Grace.”

Emori smiled, gentle. “What brings you to Supplication, Mavia?”

“Um, blessed be the Primes,” the woman stuttered, fumbling around in the deep pockets of her skirt for something. “I wanted to— to—“ she began, trailing off until she’d fished the object from her skirt, unfolding a balled up piece of fabric. It revealed itself as a beautiful shawl, woven in every color and trimmed with glittering gold thread.

Emori smiled, pained and sorry, and yet still so kind. Bellamy felt another untamable burst of pride and love for his family, for their talent and their compassion.

“It’s gorgeous, Mavia,” Emori said, and clearly meant it. “I can’t thank you nor commend your craftsmanship enough. But we aren’t taking tributes anymore.”

“Oh no, your Grace,” Mavia argued, shaking her head and shifting loose a few more frazzled strands of blonde hair from her ponytail. “You must take it.”

“I would only gift it back to you, to reward you for your skill and your kindness,” Emori replied, causing a blush to rise up on the mother’s cheeks. This was clearly the right thing to say, as the woman bundled the shawl against her chest and nodded in understanding. “Please, tell me what it is you’d like to bring to our attention, Mavia,” implored Emori, which Bellamy thought was kind of awkward, referring to eleven empty thrones as the rest of ‘our.’

“Well, you see,” the woman began, “My husband, he was badly injured in the battle, and I was concerned that… well, I hope that I’m not asking too much, I understand if it can’t be done, but I was worried our rations would be reduced while he’s out of commission, seeing as he’s out of sick days and can’t tend to his assignments. I hoped we’d still receive what we always have, just until he’s back on his feet.” She held the straw blond heads of her boys as she spoke, each of them shy and clinging to her shoulders as Emori looked them over.

“Of course,” Emori said with perfect certainty, even though Bellamy wasn’t sure they’d ever discussed whether they had the means. But the people would eat, of that he was sure. They’d make do one way or another. 

The mother reached up to wipe a budding tear away with her knuckle, nodding gratefully. “No one will go without,” Emori continued. “I’ll be sure your family gets everything they need. In fact, my… _brother_ will personally check in on the wounded this evening and ensure all is well with your husband.”

“Thank you,” said Mavia, still nodding as she stuffed her intricate shawl into her skirt pocket again and began herding her sons to their feet. “Thank you.”

Emori slumped over again the moment the mother’s back was turned, resting a cheek on her jeweled fist.

“Daniel’ll check in on the wounded, will he?” Bellamy asked, grinning sideways.

“Yes he will,” said Emori, turning to glare up at Bellamy as the great doors closed again. “And if he complains, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Give the man a break,” Bellamy teased. “An assassination attempt would give any great monarch a tummy ache.”

Emori scoffed, swatting him gently. “Who knows what that fool is up to?”

“I’ll go check on him,” Bellamy decided, giving Emori’s shoulder a squeeze. “See if I can get his lazy ass to come up here and help you, your Grace.”

Emori smiled, patting his hand and shaking her head in exasperation. “I guess if he’ll listen to anyone, it’s you.”

“Scary thought,” Bellamy replied, slipping out of the throne room just as Emori straightened up and welcomed another hopeful citizen inside.

Murphy’s room was a long ways from the throne room, leading Bellamy down high-ceilinged hallways lined by endless sconces, past an unsettling mural of The Offering Grove, up a long set of stone stairs, and over marble tiles that eventually sparkled with rivers of sapphire, signifying that he had reached the Lees’ wing of the palace.

Standing before the tall, curved double doors of Murphy’s room, Bellamy knocked on the frosted glass, raising a brow at the notes of a fervent violin pulsing behind the door and sneaking through its cracks. He gave it a few seconds before deciding Murphy hadn’t heard him, and twisted the gilded door handle to peek inside.

The massive room was drenched in low light from a dimmed chandelier, casting strange, crystalline shadows over the ostentatious furniture and across the glass of the balcony doors. Though Bellamy had expected him to be passed out on the massive bed or sprawled across the velvet chaise lounge, Murphy was pacing, chewing his thumbnail, and evidently hadn’t noticed Bellamy’s presence at all.

Frowning, Bellamy watched Murphy walk from the curling iron backboard of the bed to the blazing fireplace, dragging his emerald cape back and forth across the glittering floor. The music was deafening, just how Murphy liked it, though Bellamy hadn’t pegged him for a classical aficionado.

Suddenly, Murphy turned on his heel and made toward the great mahogany hutch desk against the wall, hunching over something and spotlit by one of the three golden heads on a tree lamp. Bellamy shook his head and closed the door behind him, crossing over to the stereo and turning down the volume dial so that he could think.

The first thing he heard when the music was low was a _click,_ and Bellamy turned, the dark barrel of a pistol introducing itself to his face.

Bellamy raised his hands slowly. Murphy’s expression was cool and calm for a moment, before his eyes looked wild. “I’m sorry,” he said, still pointing the gun at Bellamy, a tremble in his hand. “You surprised me.”

“Can you put the gun down, Murphy?”

“Yeah,” he said, still pointing the gun, before he barked out a laugh and put the safety back on, turning around to tuck the weapon into a drawer and shuffle everything around on his desk, cleaning up feverishly. “Sorry, man. Guess I’m a little on edge.”

“That’s alright,” Bellamy answered, heart still pounding as he reassured himself that this was Murphy. That Murphy would never hurt him. “I should commend your reflexes.”

Murphy tossed a grin over his shoulder at that, still stuffing things into drawers as if Bellamy was one to care about a mess. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Bellamy, moving over to the fireplace to kick his feet up on the dark emerald chaise and lie back, crossing his arms behind his head as the warmth of the leaping fire crept over his skin. “Didn’t know you were such a quick draw.”

“Cowboy movies,” Murphy said simply, “I’m a regular John Wayne.” He then joined Bellamy with two snifters of bourbon, handing one off. 

Bellamy sat up on the chaise to peer out of the window where the sun had only just set, casting the world in a deep, heavy navy speckled by faint stars. Murphy rolled his eyes from the armchair beside Bellamy’s feet, reaching out to forcibly clink their glasses together. “We’re gods, Bellamy. Drink now, drink later, drink _whenever.”_

Bellamy tried to look stern in the face of Murphy’s ever-tempting hedonism but took a sip anyway, peering at Murphy’s pleased and bulbous face, warped through the curve of his glass.

They sat in silence for a long moment, as Bellamy had forgotten what he came for and Murphy was pensive, an arm draped over his knee and fingers drumming against his snifter as he stared into the flames.

“You’re safe,” Bellamy said before he’d thought to do it, watching the fire dance in Murphy’s eyes. “You know that, right? You know we wouldn’t let anything happen to you?”

Murphy turned to look at him then, wearing one of those faces of his that might have meant nothing and might have meant everything. None of his features had shifted but there was a deep thoughtfulness about him, a piercing and horribly sincere quality to his gaze. “I think you’d try,” he said, sounding like his voice was caught in his throat and looking as if he was doing his best to smile.

“I promise,” Bellamy said, scooting closer. “Things’ll be different now.”

Nearer, he found that Murphy’s smile was profoundly sad. “I don’t like promises. If anyone ever kept one it was done on accident.”

Had his smile always looked so sad?

“Then I won’t promise,” Bellamy amended, coming closer still. “I’ll only try, and have you know that I tried on purpose.”

Murphy met his eyes with a dubious little look. In place of last night’s laurel branches was a black shooting star painted on the long breadth of his left cheekbone, the glittering meteor train streaking down from his temple. Bellamy could think of a million things that he would wish on Murphy.

“Can’t we just owe nothing to each other?” Murphy asked, placing his glass on the low table between him and the fireplace in order to curl up in his chair, folding his arms to pillow his head atop the armrest. “I could die right now. My head could spontaneously explode. You don’t know what’ll happen.”

“I know that you'll always be my friend,” Bellamy said, and Murphy craned his neck to look at him like a beaten animal might have. “I know that I’ll always want to do right by you.”

With his lips parted and breath coming shallow, Murphy picked Bellamy apart with his eyes, a starving vulture clawing to the bone of something kind.

“So I won’t say I didn’t mean what I promised you, even if I can’t keep it in the end,” Bellamy swore, feeling fiercer in it than he ever had before at the sight of that horrible, desperate, starstruck expression, after hearing it put into words for perhaps the first time in all their lives.

Murphy’s hands were curled into fists, and a vicious blush had spread across his face. “I don’t have to say it, do I?” he asked, the sound of him ever so small.

Bellamy thought of bloody pale hands twisted up forty times in a length of red, Murphy’s wild roar as he rained a hail of bullets down on Bellamy’s enemies, a perfectly good rifle and a full clip and a lifeless body left abandoned at the edge of a pond, cornflower eyes catching sun on beading tears and the glint of a scalpel.

“Nah, Murph,” Bellamy answered, “You don’t have to say it.” 

They stared into the flames a while longer, and Bellamy wondered if when Murphy had gone to Hell, he’d seen Bellamy on his way out or on his way in.

The false Prime looked solemn and ruminant, and Bellamy wanted to be closer to his side than this. “For the record, I don’t think your head will spontaneously explode,” he said quietly, gratified instantly by the appearance of one of Murphy’s honest, barely-there smiles.

“That’s kind of a shame,” he replied. “I’m running out of other ways to ruin dinner.”

Bellamy threw his head back and laughed, catching only the budding twinkle of pure and honest happiness in Murphy’s eyes before his own had closed in mirth, as he laughed in the way only Murphy could make him laugh.

If another glittering black meteorite had shot across the sky, Bellamy would have wished on it that he had slowed down and savored this.

∞

It was shaping up to be the first good day Bellamy had had in a while. The sun was high and a breeze was rustling the autumn leaves in the first hint of fall. The townspeople were taking their Sunday for themselves, a Sanctum custom that Bellamy could imagine himself coming to quite like, and were standing around in the square chatting with their neighbors, dancing, painting, and singing. Some were picnicking on the hills or in the thin woods between cottage circles, or sitting by their open windows and contentedly observing the weekend festivities from afar.

Bearing great news, Bellamy could have whistled a tune as he made his way back to the castle from the machine shop. Hope had returned, sharing with him her discovery of a transmission from the Verge that was repeating clear as day on the radio tree. Octavia’s voice, perfect, as if it hadn’t been picked up from a radio transmission at all but right from her very mouth, promising that she was safe, that Charmaine Diyoza had been rescued and after taking care of _him_ they would be on their way home.

So it was damn near a perfect day, and Bellamy found it easy to smile as a wooden hoop rolled across his boot, a little boy in a blue tunic chasing after it and skidding to a stop in front of Bellamy, who had caught the hoop with ease. 

“Sorry, mister,” said the boy, who Bellamy recognized as one of the straw-headed sons of Mavia.

Bellamy held the hoop out to him, inspecting the little stick in his hand. “What are you playing?”

“Bowlin’ hoop,” the kid explained, glancing over at his friends huddled by a fountain waiting for his return, and then back at Bellamy. “I bet’cha don’t know how to play, since you’re from Earth.”

Bellamy shook his head and the boy chewed his lip thoughtfully, and then thrust the dowel out in offering. A scan of the square revealed no one Bellamy knew so he shrugged and accepted the invitation, sending the group of kids by the fountain into a fit of excited giggles. Why the hell not, he figured. He’d still make it on time to feed the prisoners. No harm in a little fun first.

He allowed himself to be tugged toward the fountain by a tiny hand, quirking a brow as the boy looked up at him with a proud little expression. “Daniel Lee Prime played with us yesterday morning,” he said, turning his nose up.

Bellamy scoffed, boasting, “Guarantee I could beat him,” before remembering that he was supposed to respect the Primes. He opened his mouth to force out something complimentary, but the boy looked surprised and giddy at Bellamy’s irreverence.

“No way!” he cried. “Daniel Lee Prime is awesome!”

Bellamy snatched the hoop from the boy, throwing all the children into another great bout of laughter. “Daniel Lee Prime’s a chump.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to say that,” said a little girl with long braids, hands folded at her chest and looking side to side to make sure no one had heard.

The damage was done, so he figured he might as well just pull the card. “It’s okay. Me and Daniel are friends.”

The children’s faces lit up like little suns, each of them suddenly putting their hands on Bellamy, fervently insisting that they were Daniel’s friends too. Bellamy found himself smiling, thoroughly amused by his friend’s newfound celebrity status.

Then he wondered if perhaps the red sun had come early. When had he started _bragging_ about being Murphy’s friend? 

∞

Tired, sweating, and grinning ear to ear, Bellamy finally made his way to the castle.

He had greeted the servants with a friendly hello as they unpacked lunch for the Primes and their Earthling council on the long dining table and he collected the two extra meals from the basket they’d brought in from the cookhouse, seeing as the “Lees” had sent the palace culinary staff out to the cookhouse indefinitely and insisted on themselves and the council receiving the same standard, pre-planned meals as everyone else. Much to all the staffs’ confusion, the members of which were clearly more accustomed to the gluttonous habits of their former Primes.

As he left the dining room he sent Echo a smile as she filed in and found her seat, joining Clarke, Madi, and Gaia, who had already begun eating. He nodded at Miller and Jackson as they traveled in opposite directions, the couple making their way to lunch as Bellamy headed deeper into the palace. Emori and Raven were chatting around a corner, lounging on a sofa in a sunroom with the French doors left open, because it was all Kaylee Lee Prime could do to convince the anxious palace staff not to have guards posted nearby at all times.

“Lunch is on,” Bellamy said, peeking his head around the corner and into the sunlit room.

“Ooh, yep,” said Raven, swinging her leg off of the couch and hurrying to the door, leaving Emori behind as she struggled with her gown, looking frustrated with all her frills and the satin getting trapped under the boots she had hidden beneath her skirts.

Bellamy put his trays on a nearby table for a moment, crossing the room to pull the end of the long organza ribbon in Emori’s hair out of the couch cushion where it had gotten stuck before she was jerked backwards by it upon walking away.

“Thanks,” she muttered, patting herself down all over as Bellamy inspected her too, wondering if lady Primes could wear some fancy pants instead. Then she looked up, and grinned widely at whatever she saw.

“Did you run here or something?” she asked, strangely pleased by the state of him. “We would have made it to lunch eventually.”

“Ah,” Bellamy laughed, running a hand through his tousled, sweaty hair. “Got caught up in a game with some kids in the town. Bowling hoops?”

Emori just kept smiling, reaching up to tuck a wayward curl into place. “Never heard of it. Did you win?”

“Apparently Murphy’s got some kind of high score,” he answered, rolling his eyes as Emori laughed. “I’ll beat him, one day.”

“I’m sure you will,” she agreed, brushing off his shoulder. “Happy to see you smiling again, Bellamy.”

And Bellamy carried on doing so, all the way down the stairs to the prison and through the door, and only stopped once both trays had fallen from his hands, hitting the stone with a clash as he stared at Russell’s corpse, slumped sideways and staring at Bellamy with empty eyes.

Damn it.

∞

Bellamy was experiencing a very strong sense of déjà vu.

They had all gathered in the prison to stare at Russell Lightbourne’s body, a ring of bruises around his neck, his hands and fingers purple and broken, and a small, precise incision in the back of his neck that they wouldn’t have noticed if not for the haunted priest’s insistence that they check. That, and that the killer had worn a cloak, never speaking, never revealing their face to Zev.

“We know who did this,” said Echo, her back to the rest of them as she stood over Russell’s body, broken and left behind like an unwanted doll. And perhaps that’s all it was. It hadn’t been Russell’s to begin with, after all.

“I don’t understand,” Emori mumbled, hands dangling at her sides. “Why?”

“It had to be self-defense,” said Madi. “He wouldn’t do this for no reason.”

“This doesn’t look like self-defense,” said Clarke, looking miserable.

“It _looks_ like he broke the dude’s hands so he couldn’t fight back, and then he strangled him to death and took his mind drive,” Miller said, blunt as ever.

“What would he want with Russell’s mind drive?” Emori asked, blinking at the body with her mouth hanging open like she still couldn’t believe it.

“I don’t know,” said Bellamy, swallowing tightly as all heads turned his way. “But we’re gonna find out.”

“What if it wasn’t him? What if it was one of the servants, or the guards?” Jackson asked, rubbing his wrists anxiously. “I can’t see him doing something like this.”

“It was him,” said Zev, his back turned to the bars of his cell, his head hidden in his arms. “There were silver magnolias on his shoes. Look in Daniel’s closet. It was him.”

∞

They split up and fanned out, a radio on Bellamy and a radio on Clarke. Bellamy’s group was to search the dining room, the throne room, and a few of the sitting rooms in the left wing, and Clarke’s group was to search the ballroom and the many empty bedrooms of the right wing.

It was a frantic search that was meant to look calm so as not to raise suspicion among the palace staff, and perhaps it was a mistake to pair him with Emori, the both of them quickly building a frightened temper as every room turned up empty.

When they finally found him, he was sitting at a white piano in a small lounge that reminded Bellamy of an old woman’s Sunday dress, everything in powder and pearl, baby pink flowers dotted over every piece of furniture, and dark green curtains parted to let in white light that danced with motes of dust. It was still and quiet, and Murphy was playing a soft, peaceful song at the high end of the keys.

Bellamy had been dreading some awful clash, to find Murphy’s emotions at their boiling point, him raging and screaming and crying, but he hadn’t acknowledged them at all. He seemed content to carry on playing like there weren’t four other people in the room, staring at him, for as long as the silence lasted.

“Murphy,” Bellamy began, and when crystal blue eyes met his head-on like Murphy hadn’t done a thing in the world wrong, Bellamy suddenly had no idea what to say.

“Yeah?” he asked, finally lifting his fingers from the keys to reach for the glass of wine perched beside the piano’s sheet music shelf, and took a long, calm swig.

“We, um—“ Bellamy stuttered, scratching at his neck. “In the prison, we…”

“Did you kill Russell?” Emori blurted, and Bellamy lowered his eyes as Murphy gawked at her, wine glass stilled halfway to his lips.

“Sorry, what?”

“Russell Lightbourne is dead, and you’re the only one of us that no one can account for at the time that Zev says he was killed,” Emori said, her eyes boring holes into Murphy like she intended to see the truth written across his forehead.

Murphy looked to Bellamy, who cleared his throat before answering the unspoken question, “He says it was you.”

Murphy stared at them blankly for a moment, before huffing out a laugh, his mouth stretching into a disbelieving smile. “This is ridiculous. You’re joking, right?”

“No, Murphy. We’re not,” Bellamy said, swallowing again as Murphy slung out a hand, gesturing widely as he whipped his cape, black as night, out from under him, and stood up from the piano bench.

“Zev’s a grieving, brainwashed cult follower who wants me _dead,”_ he spat. “You’re really gonna believe anything he says?”

“We just wanna know what happened,” Bellamy placated, holding out his hands as Murphy gripped the edge of the piano like he was barely restraining himself from running, eyes darting around the room for an escape.

“This is insane. You have no proof! It could have been any of you. It could’ve been _her!”_ Murphy yelled, gesturing sharply at Emori, who took a step back in shock. “Maybe she wants to be _Kaylee_ forever! Didn’t want good old Russell ever getting in the way of that, did you?”

Bellamy’s heart sank as Murphy snarled at the woman he loved, eyes wildly searching each of their faces like he was about to accuse someone else.

“John,” Emori whispered, tears forming in her dark eyes. She opened her mouth as if to say something else, but no sound came forth. She could only shake her head, sinking into Jackson’s embrace from behind her as she backed farther away from Murphy.

“Look, let’s just talk about this,” Bellamy said, taking a step toward Murphy. “It might not have been you, and if it was, I’m sure you had a good reason.”

“You’ve already decided I’m guilty,” Murphy laughed, his eyes massive and his mouth open in a wide smile, an expression that was so utterly out of place on Murphy’s subdued face that the sight of it disturbed Bellamy. “What now? Gonna hang me?”

“Murphy, stop,” Bellamy argued, reaching out to him carefully. “Just calm down, alright? We’ll figure this out.” 

Murphy stepped back, out of reach. “It wasn’t me, Bellamy,” he pleaded, tears springing to his eyes. “You gotta believe me this time.”

“I—“ Bellamy began, and found himself at a loss. He didn’t know what he believed.

He was saved from answering by something far worse, as Raven pushed through the door to the sitting room, eyes wide and questioning as they fell on Murphy. The rest of the group filed in behind her, Clarke pressing her way to the front.

“We searched his room,” said Echo, and Bellamy held up a hand as Murphy opened his mouth to protest, making him fall silent again.

“Bellamy,” Clarke said, as someone closed the doors behind them all. Shutting them in. He looked her way and saw confusion, burgeoning terror, plastered all over her paling face.

She held up a pair of dark dress shoes. They were a deep black that would have gone well with the outfit he had on, silver magnolias for buckles.

Bellamy turned to Murphy, face passive, waiting to hear what he had to say as Murphy stared at the shoes. After a long standoff, he sighed and threw up his hands.

“So what if I killed him?” he snapped, wiping his tears away and deepening the smudges of black beneath his eyes. He suddenly didn’t look very sad at all. He looked tired and strung out, touched by madness. “He was a Prime! He killed Clarke, it’s _his_ fault Abby’s dead, and he would have killed all of us if he’d had the chance! I did us a _favor.”_

If that had been the case, if Murphy had killed out of revenge, his only crime would have been jeopardizing their plans to get Sanctum back on its feet. But that wasn’t the case.

“Why’d you take his mind drive, Murphy?” Bellamy asked, not meaning for so much resignation to seep into his voice when he spoke it.

“To destroy it,” Murphy explained, shaking his head like so much here was obvious. Like they were all being ridiculous for asking.

“No he didn’t,” said Echo, and handed Bellamy a little black box that made Murphy’s eyes go wide.

“Wait,” he said, lunging for the box and then wilting with his hand still desperately outstretched as Miller leapt forward, holding out a firm arm that he trapped Murphy behind, keeping him away.

Slowly, carefully, Bellamy opened the box. Not only was Russell’s mind drive inside, but two others.

“Priya and Ryker,” whispered Gaia, looking up at Murphy sharply.

“It was in his desk, along with this,” Raven said, bringing forth a tablet. Bellamy took it, scrolling through the opened file. “That’s memory drive data,” she explained. “He’s been accessing the files of long dead Primes on other planets, centuries-old files. He’s been downloading their data, sorting them.”

“You were going to resurrect them,” Madi said, her expression wavering between anger and sadness, betrayed by a childhood hero. “After everything we did to stop them, you were going to resurrect more Primes? Why?”

Bellamy looked up from the tablet slowly. Murphy’s sympathy for the dead monarchs, his brilliant speech about restoring Sanctum to its former glory, the strange behavior, the gun, the desk.

He looked at the white piano. Bellamy hadn’t known he could play.

“It’s not Murphy,” Clarke whispered, just as the realization had taken root in Bellamy, its grip strangling him silent.

“What?” Emori asked, her voice trembling and her eyes glazed over.

Clarke blinked to clear gathering tears. “That’s not Murphy.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Murphy said, a Cheshire grin growing across his face. “It’s still _me.”_

Feeling the terror and the fury rise, Bellamy gave the slightest nod to Miller and Murphy’s arms were behind his back, the handgun he had been sliding slowly out of his waistband finding itself in Miller’s holster instead.

“Daniel Lee,” Bellamy greeted, his voice breaking. He took the leather cuffs and key from Jackson’s hands to lock pale wrists together, watching the fingers on the hands spread in that obnoxious little _‘ta da!’_ gesture that Murphy so loved, and bit back his rage. 

“We will kill you where you stand if Murphy’s not in there,” Bellamy ground out, “So you’ve got one chance to tell us otherwise, and make us believe it.”

“I’m in here,” Daniel-Murphy said, making his voice small as if he was far away. _“Help me!”_ he cried, tinny and with three little echos, and then tossed his head back and laughed. Bellamy wanted to recoil in horror. “Jesus, look at your faces. Calm down. It’s me, it’s him, it’s him, it’s me,” he sang, tilting his head this way and that. “Murphy, Daniel, Murphy, Daniel. Haven’t you people ever heard of sharing?”

Bellamy tried not be sick, looking back toward Raven with a question in his eyes.

“He doesn’t have a neural mesh like Clarke. He never took the chip, never had the flame,” Raven answered, shaking her head, her breath coming quick. “It’s not possible.”

Murphy only smiled, smug as he ever was. Bellamy clenched his jaw tight, searching his eyes for a sign of the real Murphy. That he was still alive. That that awful day in the field with Murphy crying on his knees and Bellamy gagged and bound in the woods hadn’t been the last day Bellamy had shared with him, before the Primes had wiped Murphy and given his body away to Daniel Lee. That the last time Murphy had heard his voice wasn’t Bellamy claiming he didn’t care whether he lived or died.

God, he couldn’t do this again.

His face must have done something terrible then, as Clarke laid a hand upon his arm, present and gentle and knowing. Bellamy scrubbed a hand over his tired face, wondering if living was really worth all this heartache.

“I could take a look,” Raven promised, hands shaking around Murphy’s tablet. “Just to see if… I mean, maybe there’s something I don’t understand, right? Maybe he’s still…”

Bellamy took a moment, closing his eyes and gathering up a deep breath. When had Raven ever misunderstood anything? 

“Then we’ll take a look,” he decided. “Just to be sure.”

But he’d seen that smile.

That wasn’t Murphy’s smile.

∞

“You’re making a mistake,” Murphy begged, fighting fiercely as they strapped him facedown on the matted table. “You’ll kill us both!”

Miller made to tighten the right wrist strap, and his head rocked back as Murphy craned his neck and slammed his forehead against Miller’s face, spitting mad.

Bellamy had to press his palms against Murphy’s back and hold him down as Miller slunk away to tend to his nosebleed and Echo tightened the rest of the restraints. The feeling of Murphy’s body beneath his hands, not knowing if he was even still in there, made Bellamy want to cry.

Jackson pushed a small rolling table of surgical tools up to the table where Murphy lay, screaming now, banging the side of his face against its surface with a lost, wild expression. The tools rattled on their tray as Murphy brought his head down again and again, Emori jumping each time with her hands cradled against her chest, crying quietly as Echo held her.

Bellamy had seen a lot of awful things. Very little could compare to this.

“Okay,” Raven said shakily, pulling up her work on a large monitor for all of them to see as she typed at the computer, her deft fingers moving quicker than Bellamy had ever seen them move, even during their most urgent battles. “I think I can access the drive file wirelessly and see what’s going on. It should already be connected to the system.”

They waited anxiously, watching Raven sift through massive, complicated files for what felt like hours but had only been minutes. Bellamy flinched as Murphy brought his head down on the table again hard, screaming himself hoarse.

“You’re all _idiots!”_ he howled, straining to lift his head, tendons jumping in his neck. “You think you can lead these people? Ruling Sanctum is my _birthright!”_

Bellamy tried to ignore him, closing his eyes as he screamed again, wordless and enraged. “Let me _go!”_ he cried. “Please, please, Bellamy, look at me. You don’t have to do this, okay? I want to be like this. This is who I really am.”

“No it’s not,” Bellamy whispered, trying to contain the scene so Raven could focus, watching her face flicker between determination and misery, her eyes darting from her screen to Murphy and back again with great effort.

“Yes,” Murphy insisted, “It is. If you take this from me, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I don’t care,” Bellamy snapped, taking a step away from the table.

“You do,” he said softly, and Bellamy chanced a glance at him, hypnotized by the small, genuine smile he found on Murphy’s lips. It looked so incredibly real. “I can remember. You care more than any of them.”

Bellamy shook his head and turned away, crossing his arms tighter against his chest. “Raven?” he prompted impatiently, ignoring the way his voice was trembling.

“There’s something happening here,” she said, and highlighted a chunk of text on-screen. She blinked at it as something dawned on her, shaking her head like she couldn’t comprehend it. “It… It’s still uploading.”

“What?” Bellamy asked, coming closer to the blue screen, packed full of tiny white text that he didn’t understand and a narrow progress bar that was slowly ticking to fullness.

“Daniel Lee’s memory data, it’s being uploaded to the drive wirelessly,” Raven explained, gripping the back of her neck in both hands to contain her stress. “I think Murphy’s consciousness is being overridden to compensate for the new data coming in. But it’s coming in slowly, like it’s breaking through firewalls. Murphy’s fighting it, subconsciously I guess, but it’s just… eating away at him. Soon he’ll be more Daniel than Murphy.”

“How could they miss something like that?” Jackson asked, shaking his head as he stared up at the screen in horror.

“They didn’t. Daniel is Josephine’s revenge,” Clarke said quietly. “She saw potential in Murphy; to be one of them. She must have known Daniel would try to resurrect the Primes and hoped her drive would survive. She chose them both and she did this on purpose, so we wouldn’t notice something was wrong until it was too late.”

“It’s not too late,” Emori said, stepping out of the shadows to stare at the man on the table. Her voice was thick with tears and broken from gasping for air. “Stop the upload.”

“I can’t stop it,” Raven said, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm as they flickered between monitors, still calculating. “Even if I managed to hack the system and access the file as an administrator, Sheidheda would just upload himself to use Murphy as a host. Then we’d really be screwed.”

Bellamy wanted to scream, to destroy these power-hungry men trying to take his best friend’s body for themselves.

“Then just take the drive out!” Emori cried, bewildered, terrified, staring at everyone who stood unmoving as if they were trying to kill Murphy themselves.

“That’s a dangerous procedure, ‘Mori,” Raven said, looking around at the papers and files on the desk, at the monitors and at Murphy yanking ferociously on his restraints for an answer. “Even if we do remove it and he survives, whatever memories Daniel Lee overrode are gone. He’ll never be the same.”

“I don’t care!” Emori snapped, eyes wild. “John’s still in there. Take it out!”

“Emori,” Clarke began, reaching out for her as Emori elbowed her way to the medical equipment in the back of the room, touching all of the machines in search of an EKG or an EEG. “You saw what he was like when he died that first day here. I don’t know if he’ll survive having his heart stopped twice and his memories erased. It could be too much. We need to come up with another way to do this.” Clarke expression was miserable and filled with sympathy, but Emori jerked herself away from Clarke’s kind touch with violence.

“There _is_ no other way!” she shouted, throwing her hand out to gesture at Murphy as he caught his breath on the table, exhausted from fighting his restraints. “Every minute we spend debating this, we’re losing him. I’ll do it myself if I have to!”

“That’s not a good idea,” Jackson said, hurrying over to take the small EKG machine from Emori’s hands, the two of them loosening the bundle of electrodes and knocking a shelf to the floor in their tug of war for the supplies.

Suddenly, Emori balled up her fist and punched Jackson, pitching his head to the side. Miller was between them like he’d teleported, Raven and Echo pulling Emori away as Clarke checked on Jackson’s jaw, with Gaia and Madi trying to quietly collect the supplies Emori had torn down from the shelves in her haste to save the man she loved.

The man she loved who had gone awfully quiet.

“Guys,” Madi said, electrodes tumbling forgotten from her hands as she stared across the lab.

When Bellamy turned around the table was empty, the right restraint tugged loose and the left sliced apart. 

The door was still swinging in its socket.

∞

Not for the first time that day they combed the moon, looking for Murphy.

Gabriel had started a siren blaring from the castle hours ago, the wail of it chasing citizens into their homes and locking their doors, waiting for bad news. Like Murphy was a serial killer, some wild animal on the loose, red sun in the air, anything dangerous and slipping through their fingers, minute by minute.

They’d split up and taken to the city, to the fields, to the forests.

They were all armed. Bellamy hadn’t taken the safety off of his gun, hadn’t removed it from his hip. His hands were empty and his heart was an open shot. He wouldn’t hurt Murphy, no matter what it came down to.

Winding, glittering streaks of sapphire began to cut through marble beneath his boots, his steps echoing in the tall hallway. The palace felt massive like this, empty with endless rooms to search, no telling if Murphy was right on his heels or miles away.

Bellamy stared up at twelve feet of frosted glass, hearing swelling violins and a crackling fire and his own loud laughter where there was none. He turned the handle and the door swung open to a silent room, empty like all the others, white sheer curtains fluttering like ghosts around the open balcony doors.

Bellamy crossed gingerly to the fireplace, tracing the edge of the mantle with his fingertips until he reached a folded-up sheet of paper, yellowed by time and wrinkled with wear. Bellamy unfolded it, and stared at the charcoal drawing of Murphy and Emori, the both of them tied to the rocket in Becca’s lab with misery etched into their little faces. Bellamy felt sorry that they didn’t have a better picture together than this, but almost smiled at the knowledge that Murphy was so secretly sentimental. He folded the picture up and replaced it on the mantle, so it would be right where Murphy put it when he was back to himself again.

Strewn over the green chaise lounge were three wrinkled pairs of trousers and a cape that had clearly missed the dirty clothes hamper by a mile, and there were glasses scattered carelessly around the room, evidence of Murphy’s burgeoning alcoholism that someone should have tried to contain. It was just that sometimes it seemed like Murphy had so much wrong with him that there was nothing to be done for it, and if you started digging you’d never be able to stop.

There were sweeter things too, like his old clothes folded up neatly in a drawer in the dresser, Murphy’s shredded black jacket and stained cargo pants, and that old faded shirt he’d worn on the Ring that Bellamy remembered the softness of like the back of his own hand. His old scuffed boots tilted sideways to fit in the narrow drawer, and a pair of long, crumpled black socks tucked into them. Bellamy pulled one out and held it in the air, wondering why it seemed strange to him that Murphy wore socks.

He put everything back into the drawer as he’d found it, and crossed the room to look inside the big chest at the foot of Murphy’s bed. He opened it slowly as if expecting to find something terrible or to be jumped out at, but all that was inside was a blanket folded up in the bottom and the rest of the chest left wanting up to the top.

Bellamy found the rest of the chest’s contents soon, looking up to see a thick blanket of luxurious black fur slipping off of the bed, piled atop a plush white comforter and green satin sheets. There were two more massive quilts slumped on the floor, kicked away and forgotten. Bellamy sat at the head of the bed, rubbing the sleek corner of a pillowcase between his fingers. 

He’d found one of Murphy’s nests before, on the Ring. He’d been carrying the boy’s dinner around the space station for ages, opening door after door in search of Murphy. He’d opened a broom closet, the brooms and mops of which had been cast out into the hallway, and discovered a pile of blankets up to his knees. Murphy’s sleeping face was poking out of them, his then long hair sticking up in five directions and his mouth hanging open in a quiet but never-ending snore. Bellamy left the algae outside, but had taken a long, private moment to stare at him first, curious at and deeply soothed by the sight, and it hadn’t occurred to him why that was until years later.

Murphy, for all his strangeness and wretchedness, was the most human thing Bellamy had ever known. It was all he could do to watch, and wish the same for himself someday.

Another brush of the autumn breeze swept across the back of his neck, and Bellamy turned to the balcony where the sun was setting in a deep tangerine, reflecting on the glass of the open doors and fading behind the flutter of pearl curtains.

He stood up from the bed and stepped outside, holding tightly to the iron railing and closing his eyes against the dying sun, breathing in all the much-needed air that he could.

Then there was the smooth brush of skin against his neck, a hand gripping his shoulder from behind. Bellamy kept his eyes closed as Murphy turned him around, silent, pressing his spine against the railing.

“I wish it wasn’t you,” he said, quiet.

Bellamy opened his eyes slowly. Murphy’s tuxedo jacket was gone and he’d lost the pendant his servant always pinned to his hair, which had been tousled by sweat and running and the autumn wind. He was trembling violently as he held a scalpel to Bellamy’s throat.

“You know I can’t let you go,” Murphy explained, staring into Bellamy’s eyes.

“Neither can I,” said Bellamy, trying not to flinch as the blade nicked him in Murphy’s shaking hand.

“Well, then, it seems we have ourselves a bona fide standoff.”

Bellamy was lucky to keep up with Murphy’s teasing on a good day and certainly couldn’t now, so he didn’t speak, and Murphy blinked quickly as tears sprung to his eyes, reaching up another a hand to hold the back of Bellamy’s neck in his palm.

“I don’t want to do this,” he said earnestly, the tremors running through his voice too.

“Then don’t,” Bellamy murmured, lifting a hand, slow, and then dropping it again as Murphy started shaking his head and pressed the scalpel deeper in warning. “Just come with me. We can fix this.”

“No,” Murphy said, dragging the small word out into a whine as he carried on shaking his head, crooking his fingers to rub the back of Bellamy’s neck, so tender that it made Bellamy’s heart hurt. “No, I think this is it.”

Bellamy tried to reach Murphy’s eyes with a questioning look, to no avail as they drifted back down to the scalpel again, calculating and yet, resigned. “Come on, Murph. I know you’re not giving up.”

“Don’t call me that,” he whispered, sharply but still without real conviction. “That’s not me.”

“Then who are you?” Bellamy lifted a slow hand and Murphy watched it rise, flinching as it curled and settled beneath his chin, tilting Murphy’s head up gingerly. “‘Cause you look like him.” Bellamy brushed his thumb beneath Murphy’s lips. “You sound like him.” A tear fell from Murphy’s eye as Bellamy cupped his cheek. “You feel like him.”

“Stop it,” Murphy said, closing his eyes tightly as the scalpel eased up from Bellamy’s neck, as Murphy’s hand dropped slightly and the other peeled away from Bellamy’s nape. “I’m a Prime. I’m centuries old, and you’re nothing but a Null. You’ll die just like he’ll soon die.” Murphy laughed, but the sound was raw and shattered. “I can barely remember you, even now. That’s how little you mattered to him."

Bellamy wouldn’t pretend that didn’t break something inside. Even if Murphy hadn’t thought kindly on Bellamy after the things they’d done to each other, Bellamy always hoped that all that pain and every wonderful little thing in between had at least meant _something._

“What about Emori?” he tried, hoping someone else could get through to Murphy even if he could not.

Murphy knitted his brows, looking at Bellamy like he was stupid. “Who?”

Panic flooded Bellamy and he tried not to move, keenly aware now of the glinting blade drawing a trickling rivulet of blood from his throat. _Soon he’ll be more Daniel than Murphy._

“Raven? Clarke? Echo?” Bellamy asked, searching Murphy’s eyes that didn’t seem the same shade of blue they had always been. “Your father, Alex? Your mother?”

“Stop talking,” Murphy snapped, looking somehow terrified and irritated at once. “I told you, he’s gone.”

The setting sun was melting in Murphy’s eyes and over his skin, and he still looked striking, his hair fluttering with the wind in time with the white curtains, a thousand emotions carved into every sharp curve of his features. Murphy was the most human thing Bellamy knew, and yet he was hardly a man at all. He was bold and strange and beautiful and bright like a bolt of lightning, and Bellamy had only been so unfortunate and so lucky as to be struck by him time and time again.

He wasn’t sure he could bear it; living without the sting of Murphy’s touch and the buzz of his grin, the addicting electricity of him cracking through the air as Murphy did little more than exist, having known it now.

“If you’re gonna kill me then do it already,” he said, and then wished he hadn’t spoken, watching what was left of him vanish from Murphy’s eyes and a wide, wrong grin spread across his lips instead.

“Fiesty,” Murphy laughed, reaching up to pat Bellamy’s cheek. Bellamy blinked at the condescending gesture but was careful not to react, feeling a bead of blood roll beneath his shirt and down his chest. It clung to his shirt and bled through as Murphy pressed closer, and Bellamy closed his eyes and tilted his head back, recoiling in agony as he felt Murphy’s chest rise and fall against his, still breathing though he may as well have been dead inside. “Such a shame I can’t keep you around as a host. The kid had great taste, I’ll give him that.”

“Screw you.”

“No time, I’m afraid,” said Murphy, checking over Bellamy’s shoulder at the deserted town square where the sirens still wailed, clearly spotting something he didn’t like. “Nice of you to say goodbye, though.”

Bellamy shut his eyes as Murphy lifted the scalpel and positioned it to better slice across, his knuckles pressing against Bellamy’s Adam’s apple, and he waited for the pain to come, the choking and the falling, the drowning.

A strange moment passed, and Bellamy opened his eyes again to Murphy trying to force the scalpel closer, struggling with the microscopic distance between the blade and Bellamy’s skin, pink in the face with effort and his trembling mouth twisted in a deep frown.

“Murphy,” Bellamy whispered, searching his eyes, “If you’re still in there, I want you to know that I loved you.”

Crying out, Murphy bent over as if in pain and shot his hand out to grip the iron bar behind Bellamy, the scalpel clattering to the balcony floor. Then he perched a leg over the railing and before Bellamy could understand what was happening, Murphy threw himself over the ledge.

∞

Bellamy screamed, bending in half over the railing and watching Murphy fall, helpless. He hit the ground with a quiet thump.

With his eyes wide and chest heaving, Bellamy had expected to see a slowly spreading pool of blood, to see Murphy’s body crumple from the impact, limbs twisted in every which direction.

But Murphy had landed on his feet, bending at the knees and rolling once onto his shoulders and then to his knees. Bellamy’s heart pounded as he scrambled to get up, tripping over his own long legs and falling to his hands and knees again before he finally managed to stand up. Murphy took off running, little more than a limp in his step.

Of course, Bellamy thought. Of course. It could never be so quick with Murphy. He could never go gently.

“I’ve got eyes,” Bellamy’s radio crackled, frightening him. He’d forgotten it was on his belt. “He’s headed north from the castle, booking it around the left wing,” Raven said from where she was posted at the forest path. “Can we get someone on the palace garden and someone in the north woods to come back this way and cut him off? He’s injured, slowing down.”

Bellamy tried to collect himself, speaking between hard and heavy breaths and trembling as he raised the radio. “Just made contact and lost him. Consider him dangerous, don’t try to reason with him.”

“Copy that,” Clarke replied. “Making my way to the edge of the north woods now. Do we have someone on the garden?”

No one answered, and Bellamy shook himself out of his daze, breaking into a sprint to get to the garden. He pounded down the hallway of sapphire rivers and skidded down the long, spiraling staircase, and just as he was tearing his way through the hall where the Offering Grove’s haunting likeness was painted all along the walls, the sirens fell silent.

Bellamy froze as a crackling voice came over the speakers in the square. “Calling all Earthlings to the ballroom. Calling all Earthlings to the ballroom,” Murphy invited, sounding jovial. “The rest of our guests have already arrived. I hope you’ll show up before the party starts without you! _All_ of you.”

The intercom crackled off again, and the world suddenly seemed unnaturally quiet.

“What the hell is he doing?” Echo radioed in.

“What’s going on?” asked Miller. “Eric and I are still on our way.”

“He wants us all in the ballroom,” said Clarke. “I think he has hostages.”

_“How?”_ Raven cried, breathing heavily as she hurried toward the castle.

“He must have moved them there after I’d already searched it,” Bellamy said, staring at the vines of the Offering Grove creeping over the bones of its sacrifices. “He was watching me.”

“We need to get there _now,_ ” Gaia said, redundantly but spurring Bellamy into action nonetheless. He pounded down the rest of the hall and past the sitting rooms, one of which the servants had barricaded themselves inside of, as well as the guards on Emori’s unfathomable order. 

Bellamy then wove through the dining room where lunch had been abandoned, a picnic basket still opened cheerfully on the table and unfinished plates scattered around, and the throne room, every seat empty. Bellamy almost stopped to stare at the wine stain on the blue cushion but kept moving, slamming grand doors open one after another under his hand like they were sheets of paper.

When he arrived in front the ballroom doors at last, he stood petrified outside of them, staring at the basket sitting on a dining chair that had been positioned there, a sign taped to the chair that read, “WEAPONS HERE, PLEASE,” with a little red arrow pointing down into the basket. The threat did not need to be spoken that the hostages were at stake, and Bellamy placed his gun inside.

Several more guns, knives, and shock batons joined his over time, and then all of them were stood before the great doors, silent, confused and horrified by the day’s events.

“Ready?” Clarke whispered.

“Never,” Bellamy answered, taking a deep breath as he placed his hands on the doors, and pushed.

The ballroom was silent and dark, the lights leftover from the memorial ball dancing without music, pink and green lasers shooting silently about the room, squares of violet moving over them in slow swinging arcs, little glowing fish inside their lit-up bowls swimming in bored circles in the center of every table.

A spotlight blasted on, and Bellamy squinted in the bright light as it shifted toward the stage, falling on a row of slumped bodies piled up side by side. They were still breathing, men and women and children, tied up and wide-eyed. They didn’t twitch or shift, didn’t scream or cry. They were paralyzed.

Bellamy’s eyes fell on Mavia and the man that must have been her husband, and the straw-headed boys who loved Daniel Lee Prime so dearly.

“What d’ya think?” Murphy asked, descending from the catwalk and brushing off his hands, looking proud of himself as he glanced over at his hostages. “It wasn’t easy getting them all here.” He turned to address them directly. “A few of you could stand to lose a little weight, honestly.”

“Murphy, this is insane,” Raven argued, unable to take her eyes off of the children, their little hands bound by rope. “Let these people go. This is between us.”

“Um, no?” Murphy made an amused little face, looking at Raven as if what she had said was objectively silly. “I think this is about _you_ all needing to be out of the picture, and _me_ needing some willing hosts for the Great Resurrection,” he explained, throwing his arms out wide in a grand gesture. “So of course, I needed to give all you precious heroes a little motivation to volunteer. Hence the poor suckers over there. See what I’m getting at?”

“Who said we were volunteering?” Miller snarled, as Murphy collected lengths of rope, passing them out to their group and humming like it was a regular old day.

Murphy took pause at the question, tilting his head at Miller. “You’re not gonna let little Billy Joe and Bobby over there take your place, are you?” Miller didn’t respond, staring despondently at the hostages, and Murphy turned his palms up as if to say, ‘See?’

“Now go ahead and be good neighbors, tie each other up so we can get this over with nice and smooth. I’ll be walking around, of course, so let me know if you need any help. Oh, and be sure you make ‘em tight.”

When no one moved to comply, Murphy sighed, yanking a switchblade from his pocket and stomping up to the stage like a belligerent kid. He grabbed a woman by her hair and tugged her head back roughly, flipping the knife open beside her neck.

“Stop!” Clarke cried, fumbling with her rope as she turned to yank Gabriel’s wrists toward her, shakily tying it around them. “Don’t, please. We’re doing it.”

The others joined Clarke, slowly and halfheartedly tying one another’s hands together just to appease him. Bellamy bound Echo’s wrists in a loose knot, meeting her worried eyes as Murphy released the woman’s head and began descending the treads again.

“See? It wasn’t that difficult.” He tossed his knife on a nearby table and finished the sloppy knot around Clarke’s wrist, moving from person to person to tighten them, pretending he didn’t know they were poorly tied on purpose. “I’ll try to make my directions simpler from now on,” he said benignly, giving a sarcastic smile. “Sorry for the confusion.”

Echo’s expression was tight with barely controlled grief and anger as they all tried to placate him, allowing their restraints to be yanked tight, and she blurted, “Do you even have a plan, Murphy?” She did not flinch as Murphy turned to look at her, clearly amused. “You only have five Nightbloods here. What do you plan to do with everyone else? Turn them into Nightbloods yourself? Keep them locked up until you can make your own drives?”

_“Spoilers,”_ Murphy tutted, unfurling another length of rope and approaching Bellamy, waiting. When Bellamy didn’t offer his wrists, Murphy snatched them up himself, winding the rope around them and pulling them together so tight that it hurt. He was watching Bellamy as he did so, eyes twinkling with mischief in a way that was both painfully familiar and terribly unknown.

When he was done he turned away, spinning at the base of the stage and looking them all over with satisfaction. “You may be wondering why I invited you all here today rather than the lab,” he said, clasping his hands. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s Naming Day. Tradition requires we have a bit of fun first, and who am _I_ to dash the long-cherished customs of this great kingdom?”

Murphy pressed a button on the stereo remote and music burst forth from the speakers, violins and pianos and cellos harmonizing to bow out a beautiful waltz. “Do we have any dancers in the room?” he asked, arms open in invitation as the dance floor swirled with swinging lights and colored shapes. “No? No takers? Perhaps we just need to warm up first.”

He crossed the room in a few long strides, pouring glasses full of more than a few fingers of hard liquor. “Why don’t you all have a seat,” he mentioned as he poured, glancing once over his shoulder to ensure they were all still where he’d left them. “I’ll bring them myself. You are my guests, after all.”

Slowly, bewildered, everyone sat. All but Emori.

Murphy only glanced at her as he returned with a tray of glasses, passing them out seemingly at random, but clearly having considered who the biggest threats to him would be, singling out Raven, Miller, and Echo in particular. He left the tallest glass in front of Bellamy.

“None for you, squirt,” he said to Madi, handing her a glass of cheerful red punch. “Not good for your development. Not that you’ll be developing much longer.”

Clarke muffled a sob in her hands as Madi’s face blanched. “But— I’m a Nightblood?”

“Well, nobody wants to be on the throne looking like they just got out of diapers, so I’ll be using _you_ for your bone marrow,” Madi recoiled, and Murphy grinned like they were in on a joke together. “I know. Gross, right?”

Murphy had harassed several more members of their group before he made his way back around to Emori, where she stood by a pillar with her hands bound before her, watching him, silent tears streaming down her face. Bellamy wondered at the fact that she had any left to cry.

“What’s _her_ problem?” Murphy asked Raven, jerking his head at Emori and making a face. Raven only glared up at him, grabbing her glass in an awkwardly-bent hand. Murphy seemingly made up his mind and approached Emori, looking kind.

“Why don’t you have a seat, sweetheart,” he suggested, reaching out to wipe Emori’s tears away with his thumb. “It’ll be over soon. For some, sooner than others. I promise.” He looked her up and down, and Bellamy’s heart pounded at the realization that Emori was dressed up as Daniel’s dead sister, at the terrifying image of her mind being wiped and her body stolen at Murphy’s hands.

He may have walked like Murphy, may have talked like Murphy, but the Murphy they knew was gone.

He maneuvered a pliant Emori into a chair and placed a full to the brim, crystal tumbler before her. “Drink up, sister dear. You look like you need it,” he insisted, guiding her hand to the glass and forcing her to raise it to her lips. It dribbled down Emori’s chin as she kept her mouth stubbornly closed, and Murphy continued tipping it anyway, watching with a bored expression as the liquor trickled onto the tablecloth and poured into Emori’s lap. He only stopped once the glass was finally empty, placing it back onto the table with a loud clatter that made them all jump. All but her.

Bellamy stayed looking at Emori as he stepped away, watching amber liquid drip from her chin, mingling with her tears as she stared unseeingly forward.

Murphy stopped at each table, not satisfied until everyone drank. When Miller refused, Murphy grabbed his face and pressed his thumb against Miller’s fractured nose, pushing against the cartilage until it was cracking and Miller’s eyes were flooding with tears. Jackson screamed and cursed, and with another quiet _crunch_ Miller finally cried out, fumbling blindly for his glass and forcing a sip down. Appeased, Murphy scrubbed his head companionably and strode away.

“Don’t make me do it for you,” Murphy said as he reached Bellamy’s table, leaning on it with all the casualness in the world and rolling his eyes at Bellamy’s predicted protest. But Bellamy had no intentions of being defiant, and drank. Murphy watched his throat roll, looking both pleased and annoyed at Bellamy’s compliance as he pushed off of the table and returned to the dance floor.

“You,” he said, crooking a finger at Gaia. She rose with her head held high, striding bravely to meet him. “And you, and you, and you,” Murphy chose, pointing at Jackson, Gabriel, and Clarke. They stood reluctantly, Jackson uncharacteristically furious, Gabriel stone-faced, and Clarke hurriedly wiping at her tears as they approached.

The music still pulsed, a dark waltz strumming out of the massive ballroom speakers, and Murphy was conducting to it, stopping only to gesture for the little group he’d collected to pair up. 

Swallowing tightly, Gabriel took Clarke’s bound hands in his and Gaia approached Jackson with a grim determination that seemed unfit for dancing, and the two odd couples began, without heart, stepping stiffly to the music.

After a moment Murphy sighed, slumping against Raven’s table. “You don’t look like you’re having _fun,”_ he complained. “This is supposed to be a celebration!”

“Why would we be having fun, you psychopath?” Raven snapped, clearly more adept at separating Murphy’s face from Daniel’s antics than the rest of them. “Stop playing with your damn food and kill us already.”

Bellamy thought he might smile that wrong smile again, amused by Raven’s belligerence. The others gasped as Murphy instead struck Raven across the face. 

She kept her head wrenched to the side and her eyes squeezed closed, her face blooming red with anger and humiliation and hurt. Murphy just shook his head as he turned back toward the stumbling dancers, like Raven was little more than a gnat that had flown past his ear. 

“God, you’re all boring. Let’s see some energy!” he shouted, pumping his palms toward the ceiling. “Some passion! Some _anything!”_

When the group didn’t comply he began pacing the floor, bending forward to stare curiously at those still seated. “What’s the matter? None of you used to being told what to do?” he asked, voice pitched up to a high, mocking tone. “Made to behave a certain way? Being betrayed? Used? Tied up and beaten? Treated like dirt? I mean, it’s a little fuzzy, but he seemed to remember taking an awful lot of shit from some of you,” he accused, twirling a finger at them. “So don’t act _confused._ Don’t act _embarrassed._ Just know that you deserve to suffer far more than playing a couple of games, and then do as I say.”

He looked out upon all of them expectantly, though nothing had changed. Everyone sat and stared, and the four he had chosen stepped in time with the music but could do no more. Murphy scoffed in disbelief, throwing up his hands.

“Look, either you suck it up and humiliate yourselves and we all have a good laugh, or I’m gonna start killing people,” he said bluntly, flattening the line of his mouth and waving flippantly at the twin boys at the end of the stage, their overalls dark with urine and eyes wide with terror.

Miller’s face was bruised and bloody and swollen, and though he hadn’t gotten along with Murphy in years, it was clear they had been childhood friends and that he was just as disturbed as the rest of them, seeing Murphys’ body used in this way, his face and his hands and his voice.

Jackson was a furious and horrified witness to the suffering happening at the hands of the man he had first met as a little boy with the flu, whose illnesses and injuries he had treated so many times since. Bellamy wondered if he regretted saving Murphy, now.

Echo’s expression of frustrated boredom was barely masking what Bellamy could see was bone-deep exhaustion, having tally-marked yet another loss that could not be swallowed. The loss of a friend; of a brother.

Madi was watching one of the favorite storybook characters of her youth become a villain, bringing her mother to tears as Clarke stepped backward and forward to the music and tried to look brave, despite the deep heartache emanating from her very being. She and Murphy had been cruel to each other, but they had also shown each other incredible kindness. Had brought out the best in each other, seen one another at their most vulnerable and carried on loving them anyway.

Gabriel and Gaia hadn’t known him well, but it was clear they sensed that the loss of Murphy was earth-shattering, both of their faces etched with sadness as they tried to help their unwilling dance partners along.

Raven’s expression was locked in iron, her hand gripping her glass tightly. She had loved Murphy like few others had loved him. Had understood him to his core, had laughed and played and cried and fought valiantly with Murphy when no one else could ever hope to keep up with him. She would not cry now, not here, with Murphy who was not Murphy watching her— but Bellamy knew that it would take a movement of the heavens and the earth for her to ever love again.

Emori was desolate. No longer weeping for the man she loved, it was impossible to tell whether she was still mentally present at all. Trails of tears had dried on her cheeks and glittered there as she sat frozen, unable to stomach this. Murphy had been her first friend, her first love, her first heartbreak, and no matter what path they would have taken, her partner in crime to the end.

Bellamy stood.

“I’ll dance,” he croaked, and Murphy’s smile was blinding.

“Attaboy!” he praised, and raised up a hand to point someone else out of the crowd.

“No,” Bellamy stopped him, stepping closer. “I want to dance with you.”

Murphy’s smile fell. What was left of it was bemused and suspicious, even more so as Bellamy held his hands up in an unspoken request.

“Fine,” Murphy said, keeping his chin up and feigning confidence, but blinked quickly as Bellamy came in close and stared him down, unfaltering as Murphy untied him. “Don’t try to be a hero. I’m the only one that can deactivate the bombs,” Murphy advised him, and Bellamy nodded in agreement at the lie. If he were anywhere else, he might have laughed. _The bombs._

The music swelled when they touched, Murphy’s lips parting as Bellamy placed a palm against the small of his back. “I’m not him, you know,” Murphy said, the faintest tremble in his voice as he stared back at Bellamy, dazed. “He’s gone, almost completely.”

“I know,” Bellamy said softly, clinging to _almost._

Murphy’s eyes fluttered as Bellamy pulled him closer, bringing Murphy’s face to his shoulder, raising a hand to his head so that he could smooth his palm over Murphy’s hair. The touch, this moment, it was not for the Prime, not for the show. It was all for Murphy. Somewhere in there.

There wasn’t time for it but Bellamy made time, stepping to the beat of the music as Murphy turned his head and rested his cheek against Bellamy’s shoulder, hands fisted inelegantly in Bellamy’s shirt. Quiet. Content.

“I’m sorry, Murphy,” he whispered, and Murphy tilted his face up to look at him. All the smug madness of Daniel Lee was gone, and it was just Murphy, eyes wide and hopeful as Bellamy leaned in and pressed their foreheads together, bringing a hand between their bodies. “I meant my promise. I tried. Please believe me.”

Murphy leaned back and smiled, confused by Bellamy’s words and opening his mouth to reply. Then Bellamy pressed in, and Murphy didn’t get the chance to say anything at all, blinking at Bellamy in surprise.

“I’m so sorry.”

Murphy’s knees buckled and Bellamy held onto him tightly and lowered them both to the floor. He held Murphy’s head in his lap and let the switchblade fall from his hand, closing his eyes as Raven screamed. 

The music fell silent, and then the only sound was Raven weeping, and Echo whispering in her ear. Bellamy stared at Murphy, and Murphy stared back.

Slowly he reached up to clutch his stomach, and watched the blood that was near invisible on his dark clothes pulse over his hands. Still blinking like he was confused, he looked again to Bellamy, and flinched at the tear that dripped onto his cheek.

“You,” he murmured, not accusatory, not angry, not betrayed. Murphy lifted his hand to Bellamy’s face, and Bellamy held it there, leaning into his touch as his own eyes were forced closed by the blooming, pressing weight of tears.

“Me.” He rocked Murphy gently against him as he hunched over his body, watching recognition flood Murphy’s eyes.

“You asshole,” he said, breath quickening as his gaze darted around Bellamy’s face. “You stabbed me.”

“I’m sorry.” Bellamy bent down to touch his forehead to Murphy’s, clutching his hand tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Murphy said nothing, hanging onto Bellamy’s eyes like a lifeline. After a long moment his hand slipped from Bellamy’s cheek, instead gripping Bellamy’s shirt tightly. “Bell?” he whispered, blue eyes that had always recalled steel and ice seeming, now, soft as flowers, cloudy and fragile, wet with tears. “I’m scared.”

“It’s okay,” Bellamy promised, rocking him like a child, sweeping Murphy’s hair from his forehead with a bloodied hand. “It’s okay, Murph, yeah? It’s okay.”

“I don’t wanna never see you again,” Murphy pleaded, his blue eyes chasing Bellamy’s like he was trying to carve them into his memory. “You’re the only thing I couldn’t forget. You’re the only thing I know.”

Bellamy shook his head against Murphy’s, squeezing Murphy so tight that it must have hurt. “You will. You will see me again. And… and then, you’ll be you and I’ll be me.”

Murphy gasped from the pain, eyes fluttering as Bellamy wiped the tears from his pale cheeks, turning his hand on its side to keep the blood from Murphy’s face. “That’s terrible. Can’t I be Brad Pitt or something?”

Bellamy barked out a horrible laugh, a tearful, crumbling sound, as love and sorrow welled up in him with such force that he thought he might explode. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, again and again and again. “I’m sorry.”

A hurt little smile bloomed on Murphy’s lips at the sound of his laugh, small and honest and good. “Bellamy,” he whispered. "I don’t have to say it, do I? That I loved you?”

“Nah, Murph,” said Bellamy, somehow finding it easy to smile even as so many tears spilt from him, curving to his lips, falling from his cheeks. “You don’t have to say it.”

So Murphy didn’t say it, staring up at Bellamy until the end, not needing to have the last word for the first time in his life. 

One finger at a time, his fist unlatched from Bellamy’s shirt. A last tear slipped from the corner of his eye and disappeared in Murphy’s hair, and his chest, at last, fell still. _“No,”_ Raven wailed, collapsing into Echo’s arms. Bellamy held Murphy tight against his chest, whispering words that he knew Murphy would have hated.

“In peace may you leave the shore. In love may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground.” He leant down to press a kiss to Murphy’s temple, and closed his eyes. “John Murphy, may we meet again.”

∞

A month later, Octavia steps out of the green.

She has Diyoza. Cadogan is dead. She's... older.

“This symbol,” she says, showing them the ‘O’ etched into her back, on Hope’s face, on Charmaine Diyoza’s neck. “This is how we move through time. The anomaly doesn’t have you to choose you. You can choose it.” She turns to the flare, dwarfed by the great emerald storm. "I think it’s been waiting.”

They’ve lost so much. They’ve burned worlds.

So Diyoza boards her mothership, and with Indra they bring their people out into the light to build a new home. They leave Sanctum to Gabriel, who’s been waiting all his life to save this moon.

All who wished to go, they link hands and stare into the swirl of time, blazing and bold and endless and bright. They promise to find each other. They promise a lot of things, and Bellamy can only hope that they try and keep them.

“Let’s do better, yeah?” Clarke says, and then they step through.

∞

Bellamy pulls the latch, waiting as the massive dropship door yawns open, awoken once more.

There’s awe and silence and wonder, all of them staring right into the sun.

The Earth is so green, the trees tower high above and the grass goes on for miles, the blue expanse of the clear sky veiling so many worlds beyond, and Bellamy thinks it’s a wonder they hadn’t realized it before— how much bigger the universe is than them.

Octavia takes a deep breath in as she steps onto the planet for the first time again, years and years and years gone from her shoulders, and screams, _“We’re back, bitches!”_

Bellamy can do nothing but laugh and laugh until he thinks he might cry, as John Murphy shoves past him to race onto the earth, throwing his hands up to invite everyone to come with him, grinning ear to ear.

He tries not to stare, watching Murphy jump on his friend’s back and wrestle him to the ground, pick up sticks and rocks and fling them as far as they’ll go, smile and laugh and run, freer than he's ever been before, and ever was after.

Murphy puts up with being watched for a little while, before he approaches Bellamy wearing an apprehensive look, doubly unhappy with the guard jacket. He’s lanky and thin, and his hair is so long, his face so young, his skin unmarred. Bellamy’s heart aches at the sight of him.

“You gonna arrest me for having fun?” he greets, charming as ever.

“No. Not a real guard,” Bellamy answers, searching Murphy’s eyes, the same as they ever were. “Name’s Bellamy.”

“…Murphy,” he replies, eyebrow raised, staring at Bellamy’s outstretched hand like it’s a weapon. He takes it carefully and shakes it slow, deeply suspicious.

“Nice to meet you, Murphy,” Bellamy says, unable to keep from smiling any longer, and feeling like the world is spinning around them quite fast.

“Uh, you too.” Murphy flicks his eyes up to meet Bellamy’s, and he’s bemused, blushing, and Bellamy wonders how he never noticed.

“Weird question, but have we met?”

**Author's Note:**

> .... h-hey...
> 
> villain murphy anyone?
> 
> i wrote this feverishly within one single week so go easy on me. i hope you liked it even though it was so fucking evil, please please please leave a kudos or a comment and tell me what you thought, i'm so stressed about this i WON'T lie.
> 
> can't wait to try and transition back to my fluffy comedy fic about high school cross country after this. good going, me. idiot
> 
> love you, thank you so much for reading! come hang out @slugcities on twitter, we have more fun around there i promise. jesus christ


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